Thursday, November 17, 2011

In my youth (not so very many years ago) I would have finished that line with:

....the tough go shopping!!

Well, the Mall not holding near the allure for me that it once did, I'll modify the old saying just a bit to.... the tough meditate a little on St. Francis deSales. Printed in this space before, but worthy of repetition:

"The
everlasting God has in His wisdom forseen from eternity the cross that
He now presents to you as a gift from His all-knowing eyes, understood
with His Divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with His
loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one
inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it
with His Holy Name, annointed it with His Grace, perfumed it with His
Consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then
sent it to you from Heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms
of the all-merciful love of God."

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Most readers
will know that for several years now my husband and I and our boys have
assisted almost exclusively at the Mass in the Extraordinary Form, also
known as the Traditional Latin Mass. We have learned a great
deal about our faith over the years and we continue to grow in our love
for this Mass handed down to us through the centuries by Holy Mother
Church. But it is so much more than 'just' the Mass. It is so much more
than the Latin. It is so many things, in fact, that I'm sure a blog
post won't adequately cover them all.

Therefore, I'm not going
to get into detail about the prayers of the traditional Mass, or
following the 'old' Liturgical Calendar, or the reverence and beauty
inherent in all of the traditional Sacraments with the priestly
vestments, the incense, the bells and sacred music that go along with them.
Instead I will mention just one of the 'little' things that happened
today.

At St. Francis deSales Oratory, after Mass there was a
very nice display of items for sale, crucifixes, nativity scenes and
other statuary made by Christians in the Holy Land. My husband and I
decided to purchase a crucifix and after doing so, hastened to find one
of the canons to bless it before we left.

We found Canon Wiener
and he was very pleased to do this for us, but he would have to do it in
the Sacristy, and could he keep the crucifix and return it to us on
Wednesday at homeschool co-op? We said of course, that would be fine.

After
talking with Canon Wiener my husband and I looked at each other, both
thinking the same thing: that's never happened before! Any time in the
past that we've asked a priest to bless a sacramental, he has done so on
the spot, regardless of where we were. But not this time. We learned
today that there is a right and proper place to bless Sacramentals, and I
would bet a proper vestment as well.

This is just another of so
many little things that enrich our faith. Nothing is trivial, nothing is
just by-the-way. Not that blessing Sacramentals in a crowded vestibule
after church as we've experienced before makes it necessarily trivial. But certainly
the extra care of time and place taken to fulfill our desire for a
blessed crucifix today, for us at least, carries with it a level of
importance, of reverence, that will translate into our own care for how
and where we place the blessed crucifix in our home and further venerate
it.

This is what I mean by the little things. Our faith is so
much bigger than we are, so much richer than we even know. And we are
just overwhelmed with thanksgiving to Our Lord for His leading us to the
Traditional Latin Mass community where the small things matter enough
that a bigger deal is made of them than anywhere else that we've been.

Truly
we are blessed. But at the same time we grieve for that which has been
lost over the past nearly 50 years since Vatican II, and for all the
Catholics who have no idea what they're missing out on. These 'little' things should never have been lost. It is our Faith, that which has
been handed down over the centuries. And Lord-willing and with the help
of the Holy Angels and Saints, we will continue to learn and grow in
this faith, through the big and little things.